Sunday, 16 February 2014

Today I'm Grateful Because...

So basically I’ve had a bunch of amazing things happen for
me in the last month, and I really don’t know what to say about it all. Rarely
in my life do I have times where everything seems to be going right, or things
just click. So I wanted to show my appreciation and emphasize all the good
things in my life, because next week or the week after things will probably get
shitty. Okay so here is a list of all the things I’m thankful for:

-England. Seriously,
some days I wake up and I feel like I’m dreaming. I can’t honestly believe that
I get to live here and run around the country seeing cathedrals and getting
lost in castles and walking where all my people walked. It really is a dream
come true, to be able to be with my people and have my heart and body and soul
all in the same place.

-I have an amazing family. Shout out to my parents, who are (hopefully) still reading my blog! My
family rocks. My parents have constantly offered me encouragement and support
to go for my dreams, and helped me stay on track and not give up even when
things look rough. Since I’ve been in England, I’ve received encouragement from
various other family members, aunts and uncles and cousins, who have all in
their own way let me know they’re thinking about me. It means a lot.

-I have an amazing sister. Seriously have you met my sister? She’s fucking awesome. I love her.
Basically the only reason I want to go home is so that I can text her random
shit every day. With the time difference it’s really hard for me to make Skype
dates with people at home, but she will consistently Skype me during her
breakfast time so that we have time to catch up. She rocks my world. The end.

-I have some seriously great friends. There are my good acquaintances who tell me they’re
excited for me this year, and friends who will “like” my stuff on Facebook, but
this one is all about the few people who know exactly how much this means to
me. They’ve been listening to me talk about these places and my people for
years. They understand just how important it is when I meet my hero and go see
one of my people’s graves. They get it. This one’s for them, you know who you
are.

-My Joy research has been credited and published in
several different newspapers. I still
don’t really know how to put everything that’s happened into words, it’s just
so surreal. But both The Siberian Times and a Slovakian newspaper
have mentioned me by name and validated the hard work I’ve done. It means so
much to be recognized by international newspapers, but I’m just as proud of
that as I am to be acknowledged in an article for Chips, Luther’s newspaper—all
my friends and professors at school who know me and support me can see the success
of this story. Front page in Chips, holla! Research like this, and having a
story I care about so much published around the world, is what I hope to do
with my life. Here’s to an early start!

-I have amazing flatmates who have supported me through
all of it. Walking into a room with my
computer and trying to announce to my flatmates that people across the world
recognized my research could end up pretty anti-climactic. They are the ones
who were with me when it all happened. As soon as we found out about The
Siberian Times, my friend Sarah immediately pitched the idea to
Chips and offered to write the article for them. Knowing that these wonderful
people are proud of me means so much. Whether it’s the toasts (of shots or beer
or cider) after reading the Slovakian article, or silently passing me the
Kleenex box at breakfast when I found out that my Chips article was front page,
they’ve been by my side.

-I have amazing flatmates in general. But actually. Here’s to the never-ending baking
parties in the kitchen where we eat more cookie dough than we use to actually
make cookies, the flat sing-a-longs to any of Riskay’s many quality songs, the
morning jam sessions at breakfast to Yung Humma’s “Lemme Smang It,” new
articles on the Wall of F/SHame, random dance parties on a Thursday night, no
one talking to me in the morning before I finish my of bowl of Honey Nut
Cornflakes, perfectly timed movie quote references, good times in The Smoke
Yard, finally having me walking through the kitchen in a towel for my shower
beer become the norm, building forts (“porn forts”) in the living room, and all
the “Hi” and “How was it?!” when I walk in the door after a trip. We’re crazy
and I love it. Imma miss it next year.

-I opened a UK bank account three weeks ago and finally have money in my account. The long
saga of Paypal is finally done and over: it took three weeks to transfer money
from my US bank account, via my US Paypal account to my UK Paypal account, and
to my UK bank account. I finally caved and opened a bank account here in
England since I was sick of getting fucked over by fees. Transferring money via
Paypal significantly decreased my “international processing fees,” but took
literally FOR-FUCKING-EVER. After finally calling them (note: the automated
message system does not recognize “are you fucking kidding me?!” as an
appropriate response), I got my money transferred. My first purchase with my
Barclays card: 20-can case of beer from Tesco, supposed to be £15 but rang up
as £13.65. It’s a sign. The approving nod from my bus driver as I got off with
my case under my arm says it all.

-Living in a city that knows how to have a good time. Nottingham likes to party. Any night of the week,
there is a plethora of clubs and bars and pubs you can go to and have a great
time. If you don’t like clubbing, don’t come here. You’ll be bored. Going out
in Notts is always so much fun! People start early and go hard, and if you like
to go out you will literally never be bored. Ocean is my favorite, I will miss
it so much next year. Also, HOLLA to having the UK’s best bus system! The
longest I have to wait during the day to get to the city centre is about 6
minutes. It would take me about an hour to walk to campus, but with the bus I
can do it in 25. I especially love the night bus, which saves me £7.50 on cab
fare when I go out on the weekends. All about dat yung N77!

-I have amazing opportunities to travel in Europe. Round trip airfare to Riga, Latvia for £48? Check.
Ryanair is letting me go see one of my best friends in Ireland for £19.99
one-way from East Midlands Airport. There simply aren’t these kinds of options
in the U.S. for two main reasons: 1) The U.S. is fucking huge. 2) The U.S.
relies on cars, not public transportation. I frequently get scoffed at by
Europeans because I’ve never been to New York City, which is so “American.”
After I explain to them that airfare would cost $400 or I’d have to drive for
30 hours (one-way), they tend to shut up. Europe is incredibly accessible in a
way the U.S. just isn’t. I’m trying to take as much advantage of it as I can!

-I have a healthy body that does amazing things for me. I’m finally starting to push myself to do harder
and longer runs. I’ve been feeling pretty pathetic, since I was running the
Lake Street-Ford Parkway loop (6 miles) fairly regularly this summer, and my
longestrun in Notts was just
about 4 miles. But I’m done being a pansy and I’m running longer and harder and
up more hills and not being scared! I’m so appreciative of the fact that I’m
healthy and my body can handle tough challenges. These challenges also include
yoga, which I’ve been doing regularly (mainly with a few of my flatmates) and
which frequently kicks my ass. Frog and wheel, this one’s for you. It takes a
really long time to love your body. But seriously. Treat your body right and
treat yourself right. Love your body, and it will love you.

-I got my housing figured out for senior year and I got
what I wanted. Aka I won’t be homeless
senior year! It’s been really stressful trying to plan out housing for next
year, since I’m not actually at Luther on campus to get things straight.
Baker’s been the dream since freshman year, and I am so excited to live in an
apartment and not be forced to go the caf! Depending on availability and if the
6 of us get a 6-person apartment, I might even have my own room. Which would be
ballin. I’m planning on throwing a kegger for myself, which will take place
around pants-off-o’clock. No one else is invited. It will be glorious.

-I passed all my classes at uni last semester. Grades were released a few days ago, and I did far
better than I could have hoped in my Polish and Russian Culture classes! In the
UK system, a 70 is an A, and anything above that is super good. Just gonna say
it… got a 92 in Polish and a 70 in Russian Culture. I can’t believe I did so
well in my Russian Culture exam, considering that I had 23 hours to study for
it after getting back from a month’s worth of travel over winter break! The
celebrations started Thursday and will continue forever. Also, assuming that
the Russian Culture class will transfer okay, I’m officially finished with my
Russian Studies minor!

-I finally
finished all six seasons of Dawson’s Creek. The journey that has
taken me eight months is finally complete… Not only did the good theme song
come on for the last episode/series finale, but what can I say: Team Pacey
forever. Not even Netflix deleting the last three seasons (coincidentally timed
with me starting Season 5, aka when I actually needed to watch the last
seasons…) or having the bad theme song at the beginning of every episode could
deter me. Again, Team Pacey for life. Any Team Dawson fans out there… sucks to
suck. What a wonderful show! So glad I finally watched it!

Honestly, life is just amazing right now. Sometimes you just
need to take a step back and look at what is happening. The only thing that is
wrong right now is that I just finished my last jar of Skippy peanut butter. So
if anyone from home wants to send me another jar, that’d be cool. Otherwise,
life is so beautiful! Go live it!